


a very losers club road trip [ON HIATUS]

by buddyhollybenhur



Series: a very losers club au [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Ben Hanscom Loves Beverly Marsh, Beverly Marsh Loves Ben Hanscom, Mike Hanlon is a Good Friend, Other, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Richie Tozier Has ADHD, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Road Trips, Surprisingly, Tags will be updated, eddie has adhd but it's just implied, graphic decriptions of dumbass teens, hand holding, no posting schedule because i'm an adhd mess, reckless switching between past and present tense because i'm a dumbass with a capital D, richie is a good driver, road trip babey!, set right after they graduate, stanley uris is my Boy, teenage dumbasses :)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23739841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buddyhollybenhur/pseuds/buddyhollybenhur
Summary: richie suggested they take a road trip on a whim one afternoon. four months later, here they are: crammed into the tozier family minivan and trying to make it to san diego without any major disasters.[set in june, after they graduate high school]
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Stanley Uris (implied), Richie Tozier/Eddie Kaspbrak (implied), The Losers Club & The Losers Club (IT)
Series: a very losers club au [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1690957
Comments: 10
Kudos: 37





	1. [prologue] derry, maine

“Okay, so, offense,” Richie said. 

“It’s no offense,” Mike cut in. 

“I don’t care if you guys are offended. I’m so fucking bored, swear to god,” Richie complained, laying down on the groud and closing his eyes. 

It was early March, and the first signs of spring in Derry were starting to show, so the Losers were partaking in their yearly tradition of cleaning out the clubhouse. Ben was reinforcing the walls, Bev was sweeping it out, Stan and Eddie had brought some new decorations and comics, and Mike was rearranging some of their things with Bill. They all stopped to look at Richie, who had thrown aside his hammer. 

“Okay, Richie, what do you want to do?” Ben asked, not unkindly. “I think I’m fine with the construction stuff.”

“I want to do something dumb and spontaneous! I want to… I don’t know… smash a bottle, or move to New York already, or go on a road trip.”

“Well, I’m not letting you smash any bottles!” Eddie said. “And we can’t move to New York with no place to live or diplomas or shit. And it’s fucking March, Rich, it would be a pretty sad roadtrip ion early New England spring.”

“Not some boring Derry-to-Boston trip,” Richie explained. “A cool one.”

“Boston’s cool,” Ben said, sounding hurt, at the same time Mike said “What’s wrong with Boston?”

“We could drive to California! Soak up some sun! Or, like Oregon! Or Idaho!”

“So anythere but Derry,” Bev sighed. “I gotta admit, a road trip sounds nice. We could all save some money and just go wherever we want.”

Richie sat up, dust covering the back of his t-shirt. “Let’s go, then!”

“Richie, we can’t just go,” Bill said calmly. “We need to plan things out and we’re already super busy with graduating and college stuff and the house and everything.”

“Let me plan it out! All you guys need to do is save up some money- most of us have jobs- my mom would let me take her car, I’ll have my full license by then-” Richie was pacing around the clubhouse in excitement. “Come on! We can do it right after we graduate! A Losers celebratory tour of the USA! And it’ll help us blow off steam and then we spend the rest of the summer getting ready to move out. I swear, guys, I can plan it all.”   
  


Bill and Mike were starting to look convinced. Eddie, however, did not. “My mom barely lets me go to anybody’s house that isn’t Bill or Ben, how on earth will we convince her to let me drive around the country with you all? And Bev’s dad will just magically not notice his daughter missing for two weeks? And Mike has the farm! Ben has his work at the library!”

“I’m sure I could get your mom to let you go!” Ben said. “Sonia loves me. And if not, we bring in Bill and the Denbrough parents. And I could cash in my free hours if I work extra hard in the next few months, which won’t be hard because I’ll put the money towards the trip.”

“My grandpa can spare me for a few weeks,” Mike added, sitting down in the hammock. “I like this idea.”

Bev grinned. “Me, too! My dad has a trip he takes every year and he usually lets me stay home alone, we could go then?”

“Yesss!” Richie whooped. “The Losers Club: Senior Year! Bevvie, let me know when the trip is and we’ll go then, and everyone ask your parents- except Eddie, of course- and I’ll get working on it!”

“Wait!” Stanley said, and Richie tensed up, worrying there was some huge massive flaw in his plan he hadn’t realized. “Where do we go?”

There was silence, then everybody began to yell out ideas. “Arizona!” “Florida!” “We should go to Canada!” “New York!” “Northern Michigan!” Then, Ben offered :Southern California? San Diego?”

“Does anybody object to San Diego?” Mike asked. Nobody did. 

“Lady and gents? San Diego it is!” Richie cheered. 

“But first we clean this place out,” Ben reminded them. 

“Oh, yeah. Right.”


	2. DAY ONE: derry, maine → sandusky, ohio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the losers get out of derry (if only for a few weeks) and make their way to ohio- and somehow already sustain an injury.

Eddie didn’t need his inhaler, but he gripped it close anyways as he ran down the street in the near-dark. Suitcase in hand, backpack on his back, adrenaline flooding through him. 

He wasn’t running away, because he had his mother’s permission (and her phone number on speed-dial, and about seven placebo prescriptions, and a fake inhaler) but two weeks away from Derry felt like heaven. He’d be getting out for good in August, but that was two months away, and he needed to get out  _ now _ . 

He slowed down as he reached the Tozier’s house as the sun started to peek out- it was still dark, but there was enough light for him to see the faint outlines of Stanley and Richie packing up Maggie’s minivan, while the Tozier parents stood by. 

“Spaghetti!” Richie cheered quietly. “Road trip time! Let’s go!”

“Road trip time in thirty minutes,” Stan reminded him. “The others still have to get here. Also, Eddie, I have shotgun.”

“Aw, Stan! You know I get carsick!” Eddie protested. 

“Sit in back with us,” came a voice from behind them all- Bev and Ben’s arrival. “You won’t get carsick if you’re sleeping.”

“You can’t sleep!” Richie said, sounding outraged. 

“It’s four-thirty in the morning,” Bev laughed. “We’re sleeping till the first stop.”

Bill arrived ten minutes later and got to work helping Stan pack the suitcases in the trunk, along with Richie’s skateboard that he had insisted on bringing. Richie, meanwhile, was sitting in his driver’s seat and meticulously getting it set up. The mirror tilted, the seat leaned back far enough, his phone plugged in the USB port, Spotify hooked up to the speakers. He had planned the trip back in March, had helped the Losers get permission (all except Bev, whose dad was on a two-week fishing trip), and had supplied the car. 

Stan and Bill finished the suitcase packing, with just enough space left for Mike’s luggage. Stan slid into the passenger seat and made the neccesary adjustments, and Bev and Ben were already comfy in the way-back of the car. 

Mike pulled up last of all, tossed his suitcase in the back, and handed his money envelope to Ben, who had appointed himself the banker. He sorted the cash inside- saved up since March- in to envelopes marked “Gas”, “Food”, “Tolls” and “Emergency Lodging”. Eddie settled in his seat next to Ben, nestled his backpack on the other side of him, and leaned against the window. Mike buckled his seatbelt in front of him with a click, Richie waved goodbye to his parents, and the Losers were off. 

“SAN DIEGO OR BUST!” Richie yelled, and Stan muttered “Hopefully not bust” with a little smile. 

They drove through Derry, which was quiet and grey-toned, and Eddie watched everyone say silent goodbyes- Richie flipping off the street where Eddie lived with his mother, Stan kissing his fingers as they passed the temple, Ben smiling at the sight of the library, Bev pointedly avoiding the sight of her own dark house, and Mike looking wistfully towards his farm. They passed the sign that informed them they were NOW LEAVING DERRY, and they cheered, and then they were out. 

“God, imagine how good that’ll feel when it’s for good,” Bev murmered, referring to their college escape plan, the little house waiting for them in New York, the lives they were going to live. Richie turned on some quiet indie music up front, and Eddie yawned. He was going to close his eyes but Stan hissed his name in the quiet car. 

“Eddie!”

“Y-yeah?” he asked. 

“Hand up the Adderall.” The only prescription of Eddie’s that was real. He dug around in his backpack, and handed Stan the orange bottle. 

“Why do you need it?” he whispered. 

“Pill compartment,” Stan explained, opening the glove compartment to reveal his Zoloft in neat day-of-the-week containers, Richie’s Adderall in an identical orange bottle, and two bottles of melatonin. 

“Smart.”

“Bill’s and my idea,” Stan explained, smiling softly. “Get some sleep, we’re stopping for brekfast the second we’re out of Maine.”   
  


Bev, who was sat on the other side of Ben, handed him an earbud. He leaned on Ben’s shoulder, put it in, and let her Cavetown playlist lull him to sleep. 

He woke up next in a Denny’s parking lot with Mike gently shaking him awake. 

“Breakfast time,” he sang. Mike and Richie were both way to cheerful in the morning: Mike was a farm boy, and Richie’s ADHD granted him boundless energy. 

Richie was currently dancing along the sidewalk up to the restaurant, holding Bev’s arm and making faces at Stan. Eddie shook the sleep from his eyes and let Mike grab his hand and pull him out of the car. 

They settled down in the big corner booth, Eddie pressed up against Richie and Bill. Under the tabe, he feels Richie curl his ankle around Eddie’s, a gesture that’s just non-platonic enough that it makes Eddie wonder, but still in a friendly way that makes him dismiss the thought. 

They all split eggs and hash browns because they’re eighteen and freshly graduated (two days ago, as a matter of fact. Richie calls this their victory lap road trip and none of them dispute it) and they don’t have unlimited money, although they do have quite a bit with seven jobs and seven savings accounts and six college scholarships (Stan put nearly all of his bar mitzvah money in a college account and is good to go, the responsible bastard). 

Once the food is mostly eaten and the remainder packed to go, and once Richie’s poured his coffee into a Yeti mug, they set off again, a little more awake than last time. 

“Today’s driving goal is Sandusky,” Mike announces. “We’ll probably stay in the car, then take on Chicago tomorrow? Sound good?”

Bill raises his hand. “Yes, it sounds good, b-but-” he breaks off and takes a breath. “You keep saying we sleep in the car. How?”

“Air mattresses!” Ben says. “I brought one, and Stan brought one!”

“Queen size,” Stan adds from the front, where he’s busy with the Google Maps. “Plus I have the sheets and Richie has the blankets.”

Eddie has an important question. “Weighted?”

“Of course I brought a weighted blanket, Eds Spagheds,” Richie assures him, and Eddie’s so glad he remembered that he doesn’t even hassle him for the nickname. 

They drive on through a lot of nothing until they hit Albany, where Bill tells Richie and Stan they need to stop and stretch their legs. 

“Okay, but we aren’t doing lunch now,” Stan agrees. 

They settle down in a park on one of the blankets that Richie threw in the trunk, and he immediately rund towards the swings. Eddie watches his button down fly behind him like a cape, hair getting curlier and messier in the wind, before he turns back to the blanket. Mike has pulled out some chips, and he tosses them to Eddie and Ben before laying down with some old book. Ben munches a Lay’s potato chip, scrunching his nose as he scrolls something on his phone. 

“Bev, sit still,” Bill’s saying. Bev is sitting with her back to the sun, the light making a halo of frizzy flyaways. Bill tries to keep her position for a minute or two, then gives up and snaps a photo. “You’ve been released.”

Bev collapses into Eddie’s lap, and he automatically moves to play withh her hair. It’s longer now, bob-length, because she loves to cut it off but hates to have it short. The second it touches her shoulders she takes the scissors up again. 

“Whaddaya think?” she asks. 

“About your hair? The park?” he replies. 

“The road trip,” she says, 

“It’s… nice. The five hours so far have been nice.”

Bev sighs contentedly, looking over at Ben. “Yeah.”   
  


They sit like that for a while, watching the Losers, until Richie runs over and lays his head on Eddie’s other knee. 

“Chip?” he asks. Eddie pops one in his open mouth. Bev frowns. 

“Get your own lap to lay on, Richard,” she teases and Richie pulls a face and moves to lay on Bill’s lap instead. Bill hardly takes any notice, and just leans his sketchpad on Richie’s forehead. 

Eddie looks around at them- the lucky seven, all together, no Bowers and no parents and no rock wars being waged against them. He takes a moment to picture them like this in New York, just two long months away. Maybe not in a park, but on a couch in their very own living room, studying for midterm exams and listening to a mix of Richie’s indie rock and Bill’s lo-fi. Or all at some Chinese restaurant in the middle of the city, laughing and telling stories and sharing fortune cookie fortunes. 

Once Bill had deemed his sketch of bev “adequate” and Mike had finished five chapters, once Richie had reached the end of his playlist and the chips were neraly gone, they hit the road once more, with Eddie sitting shotgun. 

Richie was their designated driver for this trip, because he seemed to be built for long stretches of highway and dingy rest stops. Eddie watched as they merged onto the highway, and Richie reveled in the stretch of empty road ahead of them. Bev rolled doen the windows, road trip rock blared, and the two of them sang their hearts out to Toto and Kansas and the Talking Heads while Eddie smiled gently at Ben in the mirrors. 

Somewhere on I-90, Stan insisted they pull off at a rest stop so he could prepare lunch. He was true to his Eagle Scout badges as he pulled out from the backseat two coolers of food- one with bread and peanut butter, jelly, turkey, and some lettuce and cheese. Mike ventured into the little building and boght a twelve-pack of sodas, which was accepted by Eddie and Ben but nobody else. They made sandwiches on the hood of the car while Bill filled it up with gas, and then they all took trips to the bathroom while Ben and Stan re-arranged the seating chart of the car. 

They loaded back up with their sandwiches, this time with Bill, Mike and Stan in the back and Ben and Bev in the middle. 

“Right,” Eddie yelled at them, because everyone was bickering already. “We are not going to stop until we reach Sandusky, Ohio, and then we’re going to get dinner and set up the car for bedtime.”

“In the car?” Mike asked again. 

“Yes, so,” Stan started to explain, excited to use his Boy Scout skills. “We are going to fold down all of the seats, blow up two air mattresses with the pump I brought, and then put sheets on them and use Richie’s blankets. You all brought pillows?” They nodded. Most of them were using the pillows right now. 

They drove on, seeing glimpses of Lake Erie and tiny roadside towns. Bill, Mike, and Stan peered at a tiny phone screen to watch Netflix, while Ben and Bev listened to their seperate music and snuck glances of each other. Eddie and Richie, for their part, kept up a steady stream of conversation- first the wildlife in the area, then some people in the car next to them, then what they would do in Sandusky, then the latest Thor movie. They made fun of the way Stan always leaned his chin on peoples shoulders, and they made fun of each other for everything under the sun, and it was… nice. It was very nice, and Eddie thought it was even nicer when Richie pulled into a Sonic at five o’clock pm. 

“Orders up!” Eddie called, and Mike opened the notes app on his phone, and let everyone pass it around to type in what they wanted. By the time their waitress roller-skated up to the window, eddie was ready to read her the order for seven various entrees and four fries, which were passed around the car while they ate in relative silence. 

The meal was paid for and they drove in circles around Sandusky until Bill spotted a movie theater playing the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie. 

“We h-have to go see that!” he announced. 

“Diary of a Wimpy Kid?” Stan asked, nose wrinkling. He was clearly torn between his dislike for dumb movies and his like of Bill. 

“It’s a road trip movie!” Bev pleaded. “C’mon!”

After pleading, convincing, and trailer-watching, they decided that a movie would be a good way to kill some time. Mike and Bev bought some popcorn and candy at a CVS, and then they trailed into the theater with food hidden in Eddie’s backpack. 

“I’m impressed,” Bev commented, resting her elbow on Stan’s shoulder while Bill wrestled with the ticket seller. “You guys are really going to see this dumb movie because you’re in love with two chaotic idiots?”

“Shut up,” Eddie hissed from Stan’s other side. 

“And Ben, wipe that smirk off of your face,” Stan added primly. “You were also pining for a chaotic dumbass four years ago.”   
  


The movie sucked. Actually, watching movies with the Losers in general was kind of bad, because Stan liked it completely quiet and Bev and Mike hogged the snacks and Ben was indecisive over movie titles and Bill, Richie, and Eddie could never sit still. This time, Richie’s hyperactivity ended up giving Eddie the chance to grab his tapping hand and hold it through the film. Stan looked over at him and raised an eyebrow, watching Richie squeeze Eddie’s hnd and tap his fingers to the best of whatever song was stuck in his head, and Eddie shot him a pointed look right back when Bill leaned his head on Stan’s shoulder. 

When the movie was done and the sun was beginning to set, the Losers decided to find a place to park. They ended up in a Walmart parking lot, and while Bill and Mike folded down the seats and Stan and Ben blew up mattresses, Richie pulled his skateboard out of the trunk and announced he had seen a church a few blocks away. 

“Churches and stuff usually have good parking lots, so I’m going to skate for a while,” he said. 

“Is that why I always see you in the synagogue parking lot?” Stan asked as Richie skated away. 

“Yep!”

“Not even going to deny it,” Stan muttered, shaking his head and pumping more air into the mattress. 

Bev and Eddie pulled on sheets and set up the back of the car with pillows and blankets, Stan hung up his Boy Scout lantern, and they were settling in whern Eddie’s phone rang. Richie Tozier calling. 

“Rich?”

“Spaghetti, can you come get me?”

“You okay?”

“I took a nasty fall and there’s some blood? And I kind of need a band-aid? Also the car if you can bring it?”   
  


Eddie knew Richie Tozier and he knew that Richie was currently digging nails into his palm trying not to cry. “Yeah, I can. There in a few.” The “love you” was unspoken. 

“Richie fell and he’s bleeding, he needs the car and a band-aid.”

“We can all go,” Bill said, hopping in the shotgun seat. Eddie was actually the second best-driver out of all of them (when there wasn’t any traffic, that is), so he hopped in the front seat. 

“Guys- pile in the back and be careful,” Stan ordered, holding onto Mike. Mike grabbed Ben and Bev clung to Stan’s arm, and Eddie set off the two and a half blocks to the church. 

Richie was indeed sitting in the parking lot as the sun went down, headphones blaring “I Want It That Way” around his neck. His legs were bent, hands pressed flat against the asphalt, skateboard abandoned ten feet away. 

“Heyy,” he greeted casually, as Bill and Mike laughed from the car. Ben opened automatic side door while Eddie jumped out and pulled on some gloves. 

Stan crouched beside him and began to wipe down the road burn on either leg while Eddie dabbed at the bloody knee and elbow and bandaged him up. 

“No band-aid for the burn,” he ordered. “Fuck, I don;t have any neosporin- he won’t be walking a lot, hopefully.”

“Hey, boys?” Bev asked. “Can we just change into pajamas and sleep here?”

The rest of the Losers made general noises of consent, and soon, Richie was stretching his leg out in the car in his boxers and t-shirt while Bev pulled on an oversized Mike t-shirt, Stan buttoned his pajama shirt, and Eddie rolled up the bottoms of his pj pants. Stan handed melatonin pills to Eddie, Richie, Bill, and himself and they let the tablets dissolve on their tongues while they lay around on phones and reading books. 

At ten pm, Mike and Ben both started to get drowsy, laying down on their sides with eyes closed. Stan was the next to go, curled up close to the door on one side and closing his eyes. Bill followed between Mike and Richie, then Bevwrapped an arm around Ben and dozed off with her head tucked against her shoulder. It was just Eddie and Richie in the car, the silence punctuated by the sounds of Eddie’s crossword app rewarding him for completing another ouzzle and Richie’s Vine compilations through his earbuds. And Richie plugged his phone in, then Eddie, and they lay down. Eddie was sandwiched between Richie and Stan, Richie bwtween Bill and Eddie. Wordlessly, tossed an arm over Eddie and pulled the weighted blanketacross Stan, Eddie, Bill, and himself. Eddie fell asleep with the comforting weight over him and the faint sounds of cicadas from the cracked open car window. 


	3. DAY TWO: sandusky, ohio → chicago, ilinois

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the second day of the trip: the losers explore chicago and sleep in a real hotel room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this au, bev's lowkey tiktok/instagram famous because it's my au and i get to decide what the characters do!

Stan wasn’t huge on cuddling- Richie’s arms around his waist and chin on his shoulder while they stood around sometimes, or Bill’s head on his chest at movie-night sleepovers, but not full-on cuddling. 

Which is why he was somewhat confused to find that he was the littlest spoon when he woke up. Like, out of the entire Losers Club, he was the littlest spoon. 

Stan twisted to find that Richie had flung his arm to pull both Eddie and Stan close to his body in his sleep, apparently. Behind him was Bill, with ginger hair all mussed up from sleep, face hidden in the space where Richie’s shoulder met his neck. Mike was curled up close behind him, and Ben was wrapping an arm around Mike, and Bev was apparently the big spoon. 

The moment was nice, but Bev sat up and looked at him across their friends and smiled. 

“Should we drive someplace and see if they wake up?” she stage-whispered. Stan nodded. 

They crawled up to the front seats, and Bev got in the driver’s seat as the one who looked more presentable (she slept with braded hair and in a tank top, so she just had to grab Richie’s hoodie), while Stan settled in the passenger’s. The keys were in the cupholder with Richie’s travel mug, and it took the car starting, the slow and careful drive out of the parking lot, and pulling into the mostly deserted Starbucks for Richie, Bill, and Eddie to open their eyes blearily. Bev smiled and watched them try to get dressed sitting down in a slow-moving car, waking up the rest of the Losers in the process. Once coffee was ordered and paid for, and the boys were dressed from the waist-up, they found a school parking lot to re-structure the car and put pants on. Richie took the driver’s seat, Stan took shotgun, Eddie and Bev went in the middle, and Bill sat between Ben and Mike in the back. 

Fueled by his frappucino, Richie informed them all that they would be arriving in Chicago in approximately five hours, factoring in the rest stop. They cheered and went on their merry way. 

Stan enjoyed the front seat, enjoyed the sight of Richie’s unnecceasry sunglasses on his head and kicked off shoes under his seat, liked watching his friends in the rearview mirror. Ben and Mike looked out the window and made up storied with Bill about the people in the cars around them, and Eddie did puzzles on his phone and re-watched Criminal Minds (which he had watched with Richie and Stan back in January, and which they had all loved). Bev preferred to scroll her social media- trying every funny Instagram and Snapchat filter on herself and an oblivious Eddie, and Stan reads, tells Riche when to turn and get off and on the highway, and argues with the boys in the back over their annotations in various novels and poems (Mike writes dark pencil notes in the margins, Ben underlines his favorite passages in light graphite lines, and Bill and Riehie both write whatever they’re thinking in the pages, sometimes in pen. It’s enough to make Stanley seriously reconsider his friendship with them both). 

“I think that- Richie, turn off here for a rest stop- I think that you should look at it through the view of he’s depressed, not he’s an asshole,” he said to Bill. “Holden’s been through a lot.”

“We’ve all been through a lot,” Bill replied. “None of us are assholes. None of us go around calling people phonies.”

  
"Speak for yourself, ya phony,” Richie said, pulling into the rest stop parking lot and groaning as he got out of the car on his still-sore legs. 

Stan, Eddie, Bev, and Richie headed inside the building, Stan following the other two towards the bathrooms while Richie beelined for a shop with food and other travel gear. 

Stan returned to the car to find the rest of the Losers inside while Richie sat on the ground of the parking lot, eyebrows creased together as he smeared ointment on his thigh (he had opted for jorts today, shorter than Bill’s knee-length absurdities but still pretty bad) and used bandaids as tape around the edges of a gauze square. A packet of Oreos sat beside him. Stan stoof over him, arms crossed, in a shirt sleeved button-up tucked into shorts. 

“What are you doing, Richie?” he asked with an amused smile. 

“Putting ointment on my road burn because it hurts so I looked up what to do on WebMD.”   
  


Stan leans over. “Okay, that was actually a pretty good job- don’t kneel on the asphalt, Richie! Put the gauze on first! Okay, looking better. Also, Eddie will be driving.”

“It’s my fucking car!” Richie cries indignantly, grabbing his Oreos and standing up. He immediately sucked in air and grabbed Stan’s hand, collapsing in the seat behind the driver’s. Eddie soon arrived and spent a good amount of time adjusting the seat while Richie spent a good amount of time making fun of Eddie. Stan settled in the backseat with Bill and Mike, Ben quietly called shotgun, and Bev immediately started to talk to Richie.

It was two and a half hours to Chicago. In that span of time, Stan read all of Catcher in the Rye, talked about it with Bill, fell asleep on Bill’s shoulder, was woken up by Bill’s leg bouncing, avoided looking Bill in the eyes for fifteen minutes, backseat drove through Chicago, yelled at Bev to not climb over the seat and center console into the driver seat, and sighed with relief when they found a parking garage. 

They hopped out of the car, crawling over each other. Ben snapped a photo of the sign on their level before they headed out into the city. 

“Bean!” Mike yelled. “Let’s go see the bean!” Ben visibly lit up at that, pulling up Safari and googling it. Richie grabbed onto Bill and Stan’s hands, and Bev grabbed Stan’s other one, dragging them towards Millenium Park. 

“So it’s by Anish Kapoor,” Ben read out from behind them. “Unveiled in 2004, most Chicagoans didn’t really like it, and they dubbed it The Bean before its official name was revealed. Its real name is Cloud Gate, because- oh, there it is!” They ran over to the park, which was surprisingly empty for noon on a Tuesday. 

“Ben? Take a photo of me?” Bev asked, handing off her phone. 

As he  _ click _ s the camera, she throws up peace signs. Her hair is a curly halo around her head, just starting to brush her shoulders. She’s opted for overalls today with a crop top, and an old pair of Vans- she looks pretty. Stanley’s gay (at least- he’s 90% sure he’s gay), but he’s sure he’ll always think of Beverly Marsh as the prettiest girl in the world.

Richie runs up with finger guns next to her, and they grin back-to-back as Ben  _ click _ s the camera again. Bill sprints into the picture with bunny ears for both of his friends, then Eddie’s in the frame with an awkwardly genuine smile, and Mike carefully slots himself between Bev, Eddie, and the Bean to drape arms around all of their shoulders. He beckons Stan as Ben snaps the photos, and so he lets himself join the puzzle between Richie and Bill (who has dropped the bunny ears)- the former leans an elbow on his shoulder and the latter leans against him.

Ben flags down a businessman walking through the park and asks him to take a picture, and then he completes the picture by hurrying to stand beside Bev. He grins as she presses a kiss to his cheek. 

The businessman hands them the phone and wishes them a good day. The Losers crowd around to scroll through the camera roll. Privately, Stanley thinks they’re all perfect, and Bev was still adjusting filters on a few of them when they walked to a food truck and order tacos and corn-on-the-cob. 

Stanley dosn’t want so sit on the ground like everyone else was doing, and he figured that Eddie didn’t want to either, so he was glad to see his friend open ihs backpack and pull out two hoodies that they set on the side of the street and sat on. 

A backpack had replaced the fanny packs in the summer before their freshman year, when Eddie’s birthday rolled around and they had all pooled money to get him a good one. He had immediately organized it, stocked it up, and carried it everywhere outside of school with him. At any given time, it would hold at least three phones from various Losers, a pair of earbuds, a book, notebook, and wallet, pads for Bev, a smorgasbord of pills (over the counter, placebo, and prescription), a fake inhaler, a hoodie that could more or less fit any of his friends, a Five Hour Energy, a phone charger, and snacks. That backpack had seen them through a lot and it would get them through this road trip. 

After a few comfortably silent minutes of taco-eating, Bill and Mike huddled around Mike’s phone to find out what they were going to do next. 

“Who wants to go to the Smart Museum of Art?” Mike asked. “We could even walk along the Riverwalk.”

“I have no problem with that,” Richie said, inhaling the last of his food and standing up. Eddie reached his arm up and Richie pulled him up too, watching as Eddie folded the hoodies and packed them up. 

They set off for the Riverwalk, Richie grabbing Eddie and Bev’s hands this time. Stan was strolling along, hands in his pockets, when Bill grabbed his wrist and dragged him over to where there was a group of ducks all waddling around. And then when they returned to the group, Bill kept holding Stan’s hand. Stan moved to put the hand in his pocket, and Bill stayed attatched to it. 

Okay. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket. 

**Ben > ** stop overthinking lol -bev

**Stanley >** ??

**Ben > ** i can tell ur overthinking so. stop -bev

**Stanley >** Haha. Okay, Bevvie. 

Everything the Losers did turned into a big production eventually, so one picture of Richie by the Riverwalk turned into a full-blown photoshoot. Richie, dedpite being three full inches taller than Bill, managed to hop on his back, and Richie also managed to pick up Eddie and Bev in two seperate photos. Ben and Bev did cutesy couple photos, and Stan took a few with Richie, until the other pedestraisn started to get annoyed at them taking up the whole walkway. 

The art museum was free, and the Losers wandered around doing what they did best. Richie kept up a running commentary to Eddie, who grumbled with a little smile on his face. Bev took selfies with the paintings and kissed a statue of a Greek goddess, and Stanley was thankful none of the security guards saw her. Ben liked the photos and Mike set off a few buzzers leaning too close to paintings to read the plaques and look at artists’ signatures, and Stan was happy to listen to Bill explain each and every painting, drawing, sculpture and photograph in the building until they had seen every section. 

It was getting later by now, so they sat down outside the museum to discuss the sleeping situation. 

“We should get a cheap motel room and share the beds as best as we can,” Ben said. “Even a crappy place is okay as long as we can afford it.”

“I’ll look some up,” Bev said, pulling out her phone, After a few minutes, she passed it to Stanley. “Look good?”   
  


He considered it for a minute. “I guess. We’ll need to get two beds and a pull-out couch, but we can make it work. I’ll call.”   
  


He dialed the listed number, and a moment later was on the phone with a bored-sounding concierge. 

“Midway Inn,” she said. “How can I help you.”

“Hello, we’d like to get a room for tonight?”

“Okay. How many beds?”

“Um. Two beds and a couch, if you have one?”

“Uh… okay. Name, please?”

“Stanley Uris.”

“Okay, Mr. Uris, we’ll see you when you get here. The room price is sixty dollars.”

“Thank you.” He hung up and exhaled. “That wasn’t too painful.”   
  


They had to find the car in the parking garage, and Bev drove them to the hotel. AFter they dragged their backpacks into the lobby, they were handed the key. 

“So, like, there’s continental breakfast until ten am. And free WiFi. Checkout is at noon, latest,” the woman at the desk told them. “Enjoy your stay.”   
  


They all squeezed into the elevator up to their room, and then Richie and Bill argued over the key while Stan and Eddie shared identical looks of  _ I’m in love with a dumbass _ solidarity. 

“I’ll take the couch!” Bev announced. “You all can get the beds tonight, but next tome we stay at a motel, I’m in a bed for sure.”

“Of course,” ben said, while Richie flopped onto the slightly larger bed. 

“Who’s in this one with me? Which of my homies will I be kissing goodnight?”

“The OG Losers can go there,” Mike jokes as he sat on the other bed. “Ben and I will share. I don’t want your kisses, Rich, save them for Eds and Billiam.” Richie tackled Mike, apparently forgetting about his still-injured legs. He winced the second his tackle hit Mike, and they sprawled onto the bed. 

“Well, we should get dinner in maybe an hour?” Bill asked, taking off his Converse. 

“Yeah, sure- shoes off the goddamn  _ bed _ , Richie, Ben and Mike are  _ sleeping _ there- we can order pizza,” Eddie said. Richie kicked off his Converse as well, sliding onto the couch next to Bev as the flipped through the channels on the TV. 

“Comedy Central!” they yelped in unison, settling on a rerun of The Office. 

Richie leaned against one arm of the couch, Bev between his stretched-out legs with her head on his chest.  _ The height difference was really catching up to them as they all got older _ , Stan mused. She was on her social media. In the last few months, she had really blown up on both TikTok and Instagram for her videos of redesigning clothing and her antics with the boys. 

“Going to shower,” Stan announced, grabbing his pajama pants and a t-shirt and heading for the bathroom. Nobody objected, focused on the TV or calling their parents. 

It was nice to take a shower after sleeping in a car and trekking all over Chicago. Stan let himself wash out his hair and use the curl product he and Bev had decided to share for this trip. He also used her face wash because it smelled nice, and it made his face feel good even though he wasn’t wearing some elaborate makeup look. It was actually kind of peaceful, and he was relaxing-

“Stanny! Stanny Urine!”

He sighed. “Yeah, Rich.”

“Pizza topping? Olive as usual because you’re boring and vegetarian?’

“Yeah, Rich, same as it’s been since sixth grade.”

“Yep, just checking.”

“Close the goddamn door, Richard!”

“Well, it’s better to face these things with a sense of poise and rationality!” Richie yelled through the (thankfully, closed now) door. 

Stan toweled off, changing into his not-quite pajamas before re-entering the main room. Bill and Mike were laying side-by-side on the bed, with Richie on their backs. They were looking at Bill’s phone, and Stan looked over their collective shoulders to see Georgie Denbrough in the center of the screen, with the Denbrough parents in the background. 

“Stanley!” the recently-graduated fourth grader yelped. “Stanley! How’re you doing?”

“I’m good, Georgie,” Stan said, smiling as he sat on the edge of the bed. “You know, we’re just out of Chicago now, and I think we can make it to Nebraska tomorrow night.”

Georgie sounded slightly unimpressed with Nebraska, and forged ahead with questions. “So what’s your favorite part, Stanny? ‘Cause Richie said he liked the driving, and Billy liked the museum today, and Mike also likes the driving and he said he’s looking forward to driving through some little towns. And Bev said hi and she likes the sleepovers part and she wants to see the ocean in California!”

Stanley smiled at the nickname, born when Bill had explained to a two-year-old Georgie “This is Stanley!” and Georgie had replied “Stanny!”. Richie had started to laugh and only called him Stanny for several months, and the name had stuck. 

“Well, Georgie, I like spending a lot of time with my friends. And Bill’s right, the museum was fun.”

“Is Richie a bad driver?” Georgie inquired. “I asked Bev and Bev said Richie  _ sucked _ at driving.” 

“Georgetown, how could you?” Richie yelped. That was his favorite nickname for Georgie. “I’m the best driver. It’s Bev that’s terrible.”

“How would you know? You’ve been hogging the wheel the whole time-” Bev was cut off by a knock on the door. 

“Pizza?” came a voice in the hallway. 

Stanley took the money Ben handed him and went to retrieve the pizzas. One half cheese and half olive, one pepperoni. One Howie Bread with garlic. 

As he carried the food back in, he heard Bill saying goodbye to Georgie and saw Richie rolling off to sit on the floor.

“Germs!” Eddie yelped when he saw Richie sprawling on the floor, eyes never leaving the screen of the TV. 

“Crumbs in the bed tonight,” Richie countered. This seemed to pacify Eddie, who slumoed to sit with Richie and Bill. 

Stan handed out garlic bread and pizza slices while Richie and Bill quoted every line of Stress Relief, and Mike and Eddie competed to guess what commercials were for. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Stan saw Bev fiddling with her phone, then snapping a few shots of the group. He shuffled over to rest his chin on her shoulder as she messed with Instagram filters. 

“Caption?” she asked. 

“I’m not the up-and-coming influencer,” he laughed. 

She typed out a short couple of sentences:  _ road trip day 2 is complete with my boys! currently in chicago but hoping to make it to a campsite in the midwest tomorrow :) _

“Good?” she asked, even though he knew she’s post it no matter what he said. 

“Yeah.”   
  


She showed him some of the comments later. 

**@panic.em** what an icon

**@lucygoosey** pleaseee post some of the outfits youve made for the boys

**@ellal411** skincare routine mayhaps?   
  


“Make one tomorrow of our day on the road,” Stan suggested sleepily. 

“Ooh, that’s a good idea,” she agreed. “But I’m going to shower before anyone else gets the chance right now.” She gathered up a pair of Eddie’s shorts and a shirt that he briefly recognized as his before she disappeared into the bathroom. Richie neck snapped towards the door when he heard the shower start running. 

“HEY! I WAS GOING TO SHOWER!” he yelped. 

“BUT’CHA DIDN’T!” Bev mocked. Richie grumbled before shoving more pizza in his mouth. Standing up, he tried to talk through a mouthful of food but the boys all groaned until he swallowed it. 

“What I was trying to say, was, does anybody want to come with me to the vending machine to get candy?”

“Go yourself,” Mike laughed. 

“It’s fuckin scary out there, Mikey!”

“We hunted down a literal child kidnapper at the age of  _ twelve- _ ” Ben started to say, but Eddie sighed and stood up as well. 

“I’ll protect you from the horrors of the hotel hallway,” he said, and Richie draped his arms around Eddie’s shoulders as they left, throwing a dramatic wink in Stan’s direction before grabbing some money and heading out. 

Idly, Stan wondered if they would get something good or not. Hopefully Richie would remember their usual candy orders. 

The four remaining boys started to get in bed, Stan taking up the side closest to the shared nightstand. Ben and Mike settled under the covers in their pajamas, reading their respective books. Bev came out of the shower, hair neatle braided so it would be even curlier in the morning, outfitted in clothes that definitely didn’t belong to her. Bill leaned against the pilloes on the other side of the bed, scrolling his phone. 

Richie and Eddie bursted through the door, throwing candy bars at the Losers. Mike and Bev caught their Twix, Bill opened his Butterfinger, Ben bit down on an ALmond Joy, and it seemed Richie had already started on his Reese’s cups. Stan was so glad that Eddie or Richie had remembered his KitKat that he didn’t tell any of them to not eat in bed. 

Richie wormed his way between Bill and Stan, and Eddie calmly did a word search on Bill’s other side, leaning on his flannel pajamas. Richie leaned into Stanley’s side, and he was as warm as ever. Stan wordlessly looped an arm around him, combing a hand through Richie’s dark wavy hair. This felt the same way it had a million times before- the same way it felt when they sat like this in the nurse’s office in elementary school, in the back of the movie theater in eighth grade, the edge of the quarry last summer. Richie Tozier, the steady constant of his life. 

The moment was kind of ruined by Richie’s cold toes on Stan’s lower leg where he had stuck them, but it was still nice. 

A while later, Eddie was laying down with an arm draped across Bill’s lap and Bev’s eyes were fluttering on the pulled-out couch, so Stan passed melatonin around to his bedmates.

“Goodnight, homies,” Richie said, pressing kisses to Stan’s forehead and Bill’s temple, leaning over to lightly peck Eddie on the nose. He clambered out of bed to kiss Ben and Mike on their cheeks, and then leaned over to kiss beverly in the middle of her forehead. 

“Goodnight, Richie,” they chorused, as he made his way back to the middle of the bed. Stan was laying doen at this point, and felt Richie’s elbows and knees dig into him as he got under the covers. 

“You could have just lay down in front of me,” he complained. 

“Nah, I wanna be the middle spoon,” Richie replied, pressing his nose into the back of Stan’s neck and tossing an arm over his waist. Stan didn’t have to open his eyes to confirm what he knew about his friends: that Eddie’s arms were loosely holding Bill around the middle and Bill and Richie’s legs were tangled up already, that Ben and Mike were back-to-back and each curled up aorund pillows, or that Bev was curling into a ball like a rolie-polie with the blankets tucked tight around her. 


	4. DAY THREE: chicago → nebraska

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the losers club hits the midwest! richie tozier is the epitome of dramatic gay! bev marsh is a queen! mike hanlon loves nature and stan uris loves birds! what else is new?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter took a hot minute but it's because i was writing for the quarantine it collection, which y'all should check out on may 20th. 
> 
> enjoy

Richie woke up and spent fifteen minutes quietly extricating himself from the tangle of limbs in the bed- dislodging his wrist from where Stan had it in a vicelike grip (he was strong in his sleep, damn) and untangling his ankles from where they were pressed against Bill’s behind him, and then making sure he didn’t knock Eddie out from his precarious position on the edge of the bed. 

He ran the shower, and actually brushed out his hair and used extra shampoo like Bev had explained when they had washed, bleached, and dyed some of her hair two summers ago. Using the shitty hotel soap, he washed the road trip off of his body and tried to exfoliate his face, but he just felt all gritty. 

The door opened while he was trying to rinse the sandy face stuff off of his face, and he heard Bev’s voice quietly say “Richie?”

“Beverly Marsh, my good… lady. I was gonna say man but you aren’t one-”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, and Richie heard her smile. “If you can get out and dressed, we can make a morning routine video together?”

“Yeah!” Richie loved being in TikToks and livestreams with Bev- she was gaining a lot of fans, which she completely deserved. “Lemme get dressed, wait outside.”

He pulled on a t-shirt, button-down, and jeans and let his hair air-dry. Eddie had once commented on how nice it looked when it was all wind-blown, and Richie ahd made a point to dry it with the windows down on the way to school ever since. 

Bev re-entered, and attacked his hair with a towel before flipping on her Instagram Live app. “Let’s stream,” she said. “Put it on my story.” Richie turned it on and introduced them as she pulled her makeup out of its caddy. 

“This is the beautiful Bev Marsh and I’m Richard Tozier, coming at ‘cha live from a hotel out of Chicago on our cross-country road trip. Beverly, what are we doing today?”

“My makeup and outfit for the road, plus Richie’s best travel tips! First just do the face primer and then use this foundation. It has sunscreen, which is great, because I’m sitting shotgun today while Richie drives to Nebraska!” Richie sat on the counter next to her while she walked her viewers- a surprising amount for seven a.m.- through her blush and eyeliner, minimal eyeshadow, and setting spray. 

“Rich, wanna do the honors with my hair?” she asked. He hopped down, ready to assist. 

“Miss Marsh here likes sleeping in braids to make her pretty curls that much prettier!” he said, untangling the little braids the covered her head. Keeping the sixties radio-man voice he had adopted, he went on to explain further. “To get Bev’s stylish haircut, all you need is some teenage rebellion, kitchen scissors stolen from your best friend’s kitchen, and two boys with no impulse regulation- aka me and our friend Bill- and then you just chop it all off when you feel like it! Or, um, when you bleach and dye your hair and it ends up looking really bad so you have to cut off the dyed parts.”

“Stop revealing all my secrets!” she giggled, as he messed with the curls. He peered at the live comments: 

_ OMG they better be dating _

_ Can we get the dyed hair pics _

_ Whats the next roadtrip stop? _

“Like Bev said earlier, I’m drivin’ us to Nebraska today and we’re going to camp in some camping ground. So my tips for the trip are as follows! Get a friend who was a Boy Scout and another friend who was in Pre-Med club. Pack plenty of snacks in a cooler, we’ve been eating sandwiches on the road. If you’re traveling with friends, have each person be in charge of something else, financially- one person for gas, one for food, one for lodging. And plan way in advance! We’ve been saving up since March with seven of us! That’s it, I guess.”

“Today’s outfit is overall shorts I cut myself, with lace trim I added on. We’ve also got a crop-top that used to belong to Bill, before that it was Eddie’s. I’ll be updating on the road! Bye!” Bev ended her live as the rest of the club started to knock on the door: the day had officially begun. 

An hour later, they were on I-80 with the front windows down. Bev and Richie yelled the lyrics to Devil Town while Bill sketched them, and Stan leaned onver his shoulder to give advice. Ben, Mike, and Eddie were in the back watching Netflix and looking out the windows. 

Richie took a sip of his Red Bull, clinking it against the tea Bev had gotten at Starbucks on the way out of Illinois. She was replying to comments on her Instagram, as well as curating their playlist. 

“I love this,” he said to her. “We should just go on an endless road trip. Never go back.”

“I support that!” Bev giggled. “Hey, guys, we’re just going to drive around Middle America forever, sound cool?”

“I’m fine with that,” Ben said, gazing out the window. “I like this part of the trip.”

Mike was rummaging around in his bag for something, when he said “Oh my gosh! I forgot about these!”   
  


Richie took one look in the window, then started laughing. “Fucking gummy vitamins, Mike?”   
  


“They’re good for you!” he defended, passing the jar of gummies around the car. “Everybody take two.”

“You were packing for a road trip with your best friends, the second and the longest time we’ve all been away from parental supervision, and you looked at your limited space to put your stuff in and you said  _ ope, can’t forget the gummy vitamins? _ !”

“No,” Mike said. “I bought them at the pharmacy.”

“You went out and bought us vitamin gummies?” Stan asked. “Mike, I swear to god, if you ever change I’ll kill you. Never, ever change.”

Richie and Bev, meanwhile, were locked in a battle of stares against another driver on the otherwise-deserted highway. She lowered her heart-shaped sunglasses, and raised an eyebrow at Richie, and before anybody could say “Beep-beep” Richie was revving the engine and shooting off down the corn-lined highway. 

“Holy shit!” Eddie yelped, clinging onto Ben’s arm. Mike grabbed onto the seat in front of him, everybody in the car was yelling or in Beverly’s case, laughing, and Richie was gunning the engine with one lazy hand on the wheel. 

“Ten and two, dumbass-” Stanley yelped, gripping Bill’s wrist like a vice. “Put your other hand on the wheel!”

“Stanley, I’m winning the race,” Richie explained. 

“Oh-” Eddie yelled. “What do you win, Rich? What do you win if you successfully kill the engine and run us out of gas-”   
  


“We have gas in the trunk-” Mike cut in. 

“Please, Richie, tell us what we win!” Eddie continued, in his usual brand of borderline hysteria. 

“We get this whole road. It’s ours now.” They had won, somehow, as Richie pulled into a gas station. “Time for shitty gas station snacks, everybody! Great job, Bev.”

“Thanks,” she grins, slapping his palm. 

“I- what did Bev do?! Never mind, I hate you both,” Eddie sighed. Richie looped an arm around his neck and dragged him into the gas station. 

“Nah, Eds, you love me.” Eddie rolled his eyes in response. 

“Ugh. I guess. Yeah.” And yeah, that made Richie feel like a million bucks, even though he was just some kid in a gas station in a random Midwest gas station, wearing day-old clothes and almost broken glasses. Eddie did that to him. 

He let go and wandered away towards the candy aisle, pulling more Oreos and some peanut butter cups off the shelf. Bev was Instagramming, leaning against the warm hotdog machine and typing on her phone at top speed. Bill was glaring at some Trump hats and flags in the back of the store, and clearly trying very hard to not say something about it. 

“Unclench, Bill,” Richie joked. 

“Fucking Donald Trump hats, he’s running America into the fucking ground,” Bill seethed, until Stan took the chips out of his hands and gently told him to “go use the bathroom and meet us in the car.”

Richie slid back into the driver’s seat and kicked his feet onto the dashboard. “Eduardo! C’mon, sit shotgun.”   
  


**Bev >** y’ain’t slick

**Bev >** gay lovestruck dumbass giving up my seat to ur boyf >:(

**Richie >** not trying to be slick bev :)

Eddie settled in, calmer then he had been a few minutes ago, and started to fiddle with the radio while the rest of the Losers buckled in. 

“Why don’t you turn on the radio? Would you like AM or FM?” Richie asked, imitating Mr. Moseby. 

Eddie grinned. “Be quiet, hand me the aux,” he ordered, and Richie did it without protest. Bev protested, though, as did Stanley. 

“You didn’t let me play my music!” “Yeah, we listened to glam rock through half of Iowa!”

“Shut up,” he hissed back as Eddie turned on Hozier. “C’mon, Stan, you like Hozier.”

“I do like Hozier,” Stan muttered, leaning his head back against the seat.

They drove on through Iowa’s cornfields and farms- Stan hummed to the music and Bev snapped photos with Mike, Bill unbuckled his seatbelt to curl up against Stan and read his book of poetry while Ben read articles about camping. Eddie and Richie kept up a quiet stream of chatter throughout it all as the cornfields turned to small cities and the sky turned from bright blue to darker gray. 

These moments, Richie knew, would be the ones he remembered the most of the whole trip. Sufjan Stevens was playing, the music leaking through the cracked-open windows and Richie’s right hand on the center console. Part of him- the hopeful, romantic part of him- wanted Eddie to stop waving his hands all over and just hold it. The other part of him- the realistic bisexual disaster part of him- knew that if Eddie did anything of the sort there was a very good chance he would crash the car. So he just smiled softly and resisted the urge to talk and fill the quiet space with loud words and jokes, and he looked over at Bev and Stan in the rearview window- Bev with her fingers interlaced with Ben’s, and Stan with Bill’s hair in his face and the way he’d adjust his sitting position every few minutes. 

“How much longer, Eddie?” Stan asked quietly. 

“How much longer, Rich?” Eddie replied. 

“Like an hour, guys, chill,” Richie said. 

“What’s everyone going to do when we get there?” Mike asked. “We don’t have tents.”

“We set up like we did in Ohio,” Stan replied. “We cook outdoors and make s’mores. I go birdwatching, Richie somehow becomes friends with everybody in the campsite, the usual drill.”

“ _ Everyone _ may be a stretch,” Mike said. 

“No, it’s not. Once we were separated on a ferris wheel and he had to sit with two strangers and by the time we reunited, he knew these people’s entire life story,” Bill said. 

“Love that.”

“Someone try to throw a chip in my mouth!” Richie announced, opening his moth and twisting around. “Ben, you got Corn Pops, toss ‘er in.”

“Ben! Do not!” Eddie shrieked. “Turn your head back around, Richard, and Corn Pops? Really? If you were to choke on a Corn Pop while driving, we would have to resuscitate you and try not to fucking crash the car! Honestly- Stanley, stop laughing.”

“If anything your  _ shrieking _ in my  _ ear _ is going to make me crash,” Richie grinned, making a show of looking straight forward and rigidly locking his hands on the wheel at ten and two. 

“Shut up,” Eddie grumbled, crossing his arms. 

“So, for dinner, we can roast hot dogs over the fire?” Richie asked a few minutes later. 

“Um, I’m a vegetarian, Rich,” Stan piped up. 

“Roast a carrot, then, I dunno. Roast a leaf.”

“Just like that, you’ve been banned from bird-watching with me,” Stan said. “Anybody that isn’t Richie is welcome to come, though.”

“Friendship ended with Stanley Uris! Now Eddie’s my best friend!”

“I reject that statement,” Eddie said. 

“Bill is my best friend.”

“No, thanks, I’m on Team Stan.”

“Friendship ended with Stan, Eddie,  _ and _ Bill, so Mike Hanlon-”

“Sorry, Richie, I’m the impartial one here,” Mike said calmly, turning the page of a book. 

“Beverly Marsh, my best friend.”

“No, I’m offended you didn’t think of me until now,” she said, laughing. 

“Before you ask me I always side with Bev, sorry Rich,” Ben added. 

“Alright, fuck me I guess,” Richie grumbled, stopping the car on the side of the highway. He stopped the car and opened the door, hearing a chorus of disappointed, worried, and tired “Richie”’s from the car. 

He started walking along the side of the road, and heard the car start behind him and saw Eddie drive up next to him, deadpan expression. 

“Get in the car, Richard, swear to god, someone’s going to think I’m kidnapping you.”

Richie smirked, because it had been activated: the Richie-And-Eddie insitinct that turned them both from normal, mostly-functioning, slightly hyperactive adults into chaotic, feral children that had some instinct to push each other’s buttons and tackle each other on the soccer field during lunch. 

“STRANGER DANGER!” he yelled, balling his hands into fists and turning his head to the darkening Midwest sky. 

Bev was laughing in the back with Bill, Mike snapped a photo of him. Eddie looked three seconds away from strangling him. 

“Richie, I’m not joking, get in this car or we will tie your skateboard to the back of the car and put you on it.”

“No, no, if y’all hate me so much I’ll walk to Nebraska- scratch that, walk to California, I’ll see you guys at the beach-”

“Oh my god. I hate stereotypes, but you are literally the epitome of dramatic annoying gay-” Eddie started to ramble while he drove at a snail pace alongside Richie, who was grinning. 

“Richie,” Stan said, looking tired. “Please get in the car. I’ll be your best friend again.”

“Hmm,” Richie replied, pretending to think it over (even though Stan would always be his best friend, it specifically said so in their first-grade friendship pact). “Maybe if you sweeten the deal- ow!”   
  


Eddie jumped out of the car, grabbed Richie’s t-shirt collar, and dragged him into the passenger seat of the car. 

“We have thirty minutes left, Trashmouth, please don’t act up until we get to the goddamn campsite,” he grumbled, walking back to the driver’s seat and adjusting the seat, then pulling onto the road with the general demeanor and stance of an angry dad. 

They all sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Richie felt it was his duty to break the silence. 

“Little worried that none of our fellow drivers stopped to worry about me getting physically thrown into a car.”

“Nobody would want to kidnapp your annoying ass, Richie,” Bev said, leaning around the seat. “Look.”

Mike’s camera had captured Richie and Eddie’s roadside standoff, Richie yelling into the sky, Richie’s flushed and grinning face as Eddie yanked him off of the side of the road. “Mike, you’re an artist.”

“Thinking of entering them in a photography contest as a photo series: Dumbass Yells At God or something.”

“Oh, I love that title.”

Finally, finally they pulled into the campground and paid for one night. Eddie slowly drove them through the woods until he found a group of RV’s and cars clustered around a firepit. 

“Guys, I can set up the car,” Richie volunteered, unbuckling his seatbelt. 

“Oh, we were totally going to make you do it anyways for your road stunt, but thanks,” Bill grinned. “Air pumps in the back, I’m going to explore. Mike?”

“Nah, I was going to go with Stan and look at birds if that’s okay,” Mike said and Stan nodded, both boys gathering their backpacks and walking off. Bill headed in the opposite direction, Eddie studied the trail map, and Bev and Ben conspired between them to start a fire before wandering off to find firewood. 

Richie did make friends with the camper next to them, a family of four with kids his age who introduced themselves as Elle and Will. 

“Yeah, my friends ditched me to set up the car because I jumped out on the side of the highway and tried to walk to San Diego,” he told them casually, which caused the whole family to look at him sort of strangely, until Eddie, Bev, and Ben dragged some firewood over to their little firepit. 

“We need Stanley, none of us have ever done arson before,” Bev complained (earning them another worried look). 

“I can text him,” Eddie offered. 

**Edward > ** Where are you guys

**Edward > ** We need help with the fire

Stanley was always a rapid texter, because he was an old man and kept his ringer on 24/7. This was useful for Richie, who liked to call him at odd hours and ramble on about whatever was going on in his life. 

“Text Mike,” Ben suggested. Richie pulled out his phone. 

**Rich > ** mikey, my man

**Rich >** please come back we’re this close to burning down this whole woods

“Christ,” Bev groaned from where she was rummaging around in the car. She showed them Mike’s phone, charging in a cupholder. “How much do you want to bet Stan’s phone is nearly dead if Mike was hogging the charger?”

“Oh, Stanley. So, so smart and yet so, so dumb.”

“Himbo energy,” Ben said cheerfully, stacking the wood. Richie and Eddie dissolved into giggles. 

Bill returned as the sun was setting and the sky was gold, flopping down onto the mattresses in the car and closing his eyes. 

“It’s cold, let’s build a fire!”   
  


The other four Losers turned to glare at him. “Whaddays think we’re doing?” Eddie asked, waving a match around. “This dumb thing won’t light-” he struck it against the box again, snapping it in half like a twig. “Useless fucking thing- do the Boy Scouts ban electric lighters? Christ.”

“Where’s Stannnnnn,” Richie groaned, flopping down next to Bill. “He went birdwatching in the woods and took the brain cell with him.”

“We really need a tracker on that thing,” Bill agreed. 

“Someone should go look for them, you know how tunnel-vision he gets when he sees birds,” Ben said. “I can go?”

“Then we’ll lose you too and be stuck in this Nebraska campsite forever,” Bev complained, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Let’s just eat chips for dinner.”

“No!” Eddie shrieked. “We are not going to spend this whole road trip eating horribly unhealthy food. We are  _ waiting _ for the mom and dad friends.”

A few minutes later, they heard the relieved voices of Stan and Mike coming down the main trail of the camping grounds. 

“Losers Club?!” Stan yelled out (it was almost completely dark out by now). “Losers?”

“There, there’s the car,” came Mike’s voice. “Guys!”

Richie and Bev ran out to hug the boys. “Where were you guys?” she asked, dragging them over to the car. 

“We got lost,” Mike mumbled. 

“Because you left your phone in the car and Stan didn’t charge his!” Ben said, trying to be upset but only succeeding in sounding relieved they were back. 

“Stan, please build us a fire please,” Richie begged. “We’re… so cold…”

“You’re so lucky we’re all moving in together. Without me and Mike none of you would survive,” Stan sighed, crouching down to complete the fire. In, like, three minutes he succeeded, and then turned to set up the food. 

The Losers clustered around the fire, chatting quietly and inhaling hotdogs. Mike snapped a few pictures with his camera, tweaking the filters with Bev over his shoulder, while Richie leaned into Eddie and dropped his head onto his shoulder. 

“Tired,” he mumbled. He was not tired, in fact he felt wide awake. Eddie fell for it, though, wrapping an arm around Richie. It felt very similar to the time Richie had laid a hand over a hot stove. 

“Aww,” Beverly teased. “Tired cuddly Richie, me favorite Richie.”

“The quietest Richie.” Stan was deadpan and staring into the fire, but they all caught the ghost of a smile on his lips. “I mean, we could go to bed, or we could make s’mores…”

Tired cuddly Richie was quickly replaced with normal, hopped-up-on-caffeine Richie. “Yeah, baby! Chocolate and marshmallows! Let’s go!”   
  


Mike and Ben opened the ingredients and set up a station for everybody, which was very quickly abandoned. Richie’s tried and true method of sticking the marshmallow directly in the midle of the flames and watching it burst into flames ensured him a lot of s’mores in a very short span of time, as well as a lot of glares from Stan and Eddie, who preferred to slowly singe it above the fire. 

Across the fire, Ben and BIll were reciting scenes from The Sandlot, which Bill made them watch at least once a year. It seemed he was gearing up to suggest they watch it again, so Richie intervened before he could (it was a good movie but they could recite every single line, seriously Bill). 

“Ahhhh, that’s good marshmallow,” he sighed. “We should pack up though.”

“Fineeeeee,” Ben sighed, leaning into Bev’s shoulder. “I can help clean up if Stan will safely dispose of the fire.”

Richie puled off his pants and replaced them with plaid pajama pants and tossed t-shirts to Bev and Eddie for them to sleep in. Then he lay in the middle of the car, curling into a comma under the blankets and waiting for the rest of the club. 

He fell asleep as Bill was tossing an arm over his waist and Mike’s icy feet were brushing his ankles, with Eddie’s hair in his mouth and Stan’s calming ocean waves playing in the corner. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you guys liked this one! let me know if theres anything you want to see in the upcoming chapters lmao
> 
> richie racing another car was 100% inspired by me and my grandpa because that's just What We Do in the summer


	5. DAY FOUR: rocky mountain national park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the losers visit a national park!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm SO SORRY this took forever to upload. the next chapter's locked and loaded, though!

Bill woke up with the warm, comfortable feeling of a weighted blanket on his chest. 

The weighted blanket moved. The weighted blanket was… wearing one of Stan’s old sleep shirts? The weighted blanket was Richie. 

“Rich, get up,” he mumbled, shoving his friend over onto Eddie. Sitting up, yawning, and stretching, he noticed that Ben was already awake. “Hey, Ben,” he whispered. 

“Hey, Bill, I was going to go for a morning jog,” Ben whispered back. “Don’t leave the state without me?”

“Yeah, no, I’ll pro’lly go back to sleep,” Bill yawned. “Have fun, don’t get kidnapped. I don’t wanna be interviewed by the FBI as the last person who spoke to you.”

Ben smiled. “Kay.”

He lay back down, curling into Richie’s side and listening to the taller boy’s deep breaths as he fell asleep again. 

He woke up again to a lot more hustle and bustle. Ben and Bev were re-checking the car and folding up mattresses and sheets, while Eddie looked up local breakfast diners. 

“Let’s go straight through,” Stan was saying as he perched on the hood of the car and buttoned his collar. “Twenty hours. Get there at… six in the morning if we start right now and don’t stop?”

“Oh, wow, what a riot,” Eddie said sarcastically. Sticking his head in the car, he loudly said “Richie. Get off, we need to unfold the seats!”

“Bill’s asleep on me!” Richie grinned. “I may need to stay here for, gee, all day?”

Bill sat up. “Nope, sorry, no dice.”

Richie grumbled. “I wanna lay here, though.”

Eddie dropped the map he was studying and ran and jumped into the car, landing on Richie’s chest. The taller boy let out a surprised “oomph” before grinning and attempting to flip Eddie over on the air mattress. They wrestled around for a few moments, the rest of the Losers watching with unimpressed looks on their faces until Mike turned around in the driver's seat to stare at them pointedly. 

“Boys,” he said calmly. “How is amicably tearing each other limb from limb going to get us on the road?”

Eddie leaped off of Richie’s bony frame while Richie blushed and stammered. Mike smiled pleasantly. 

“Great, guys! Thank you! Who wants to drive?”

Richie’s protests that it was his car were shouted over, and soon, they were on the road with Beverly behind the wheel, humming along to New Kids On The Block while Ben sat beside her. Mike was settled in next to Eddie in the middle, which left Bill pressed between Richie and Stan in the way-back. 

Bill piped up after a few minutes of driving. “How do we feel about, uh, a pit stop?”

“Where, William?” Beverly asked, looking at him in the mirror. 

“Rocky Mountain National Park?” Bill replied uncertainly. “I wanna go hiking.”

“We can do that,” Stan said immediately, looking up from his phone. 

“Yeah!” Richie said. “Let’s do it.”

“Then we should do Mesa Verde too,” Mike added. “Ooh! And the Grand Canyon!”

“Oh, well, we should just ditch San Diego altogether and visit all the parks,” Eddie groused. “We have a plan-” Richie leaned forward to grab his hand as it began to slice through the air. 

“Live a little, Eds,” he cajoled. Eddie shook his hand free. 

“Well I don’t want to forget the whole point of this trip, and my name is-”

“Rocky Mountains it is!” Ben interrupted, having rerouted them on Google Maps. “Yay! Parks!”

“Yeah. Yay! Parks!” Bill grinned. 

Turns out, getting to Rocky Mountain National Park was just driving along the highway for five hours. Bill slumped his head against Richie’s shoulder, shared earbuds with him all the way to the tollbooth, where Bev paid for them to leave the state and the Losers tried discreetly to switch their seating arrangement up. Bill and Stan get the middle seats, Richie slides over to the middle of the back, Eddie and Mike end up on either side of him. 

Stan sighs and pops in his earbuds as the bickering starts up behind them. Mike’s engrossed in a book, Bev and Ben are in their own little world, which leaves Bill to stare out the window and avoid eye contact with people staring out the windows of passing cars. 

It’s beautiful, though, and so unlike Derry that he doesn’t mind. Bev and Stan argue over a lunch stop and finally pull over at a little diner, where they share breakfast combos for brunch, and Richie and Eddie buy a whole pie for them to eat in the Rocky Mountains. Crushed into a little booth, stealing each other’s hash browns and bacon, laughing at something Richie said, Bill thinks he’s never been happier. 

MIke is fiddling with the Polaroid he carries around with him, and an older couple on their way out offers to take their photo. So Bill tosses his arms around Mike and Eddie, and they all shout Richie’s peace signs and finger guns down, and they manage to get a normal photo. Seven teenagers in a Midwest diner, empty plates of brunch food around them, grinning at the camera. 

They pay the bill (when Ben asks the waiter for the bill, Richie punches Bill on the arm and says “he’s right here, Benny!” and is sent to the car) while Mike shakes his instant film around, and the picture finally starts to appear faintly as they walk to the car. Richie’s claimed shotgun and has his feet on the dashboard, and Eddie starts berating him about safety as he climbs into the driver's seat. Bev, Mike, and Bill sit way-back, and Stan and Ben go in the middle. Ben’s bought a newspaper at the gas station next door and they all divide it while Eddie adjusts the settings on the seat and Richie mercilessly teases him. Bill accepts the national news section and Stan takes the crossword puzzles while Bev reads entertainment and Ben takes sports. Mike settles in with the crime report and they’re on the road, reading the interesting things to each other as they fly down the highway to a soundtrack of Richie’s classic rock and Eddie’s road rage. 

“House broken into, nothing stolen, no camera footage but all the windows were broken,” Mike informs them. Eddie shrieks at another minivan driver to control her children and Richie snickers. 

“Ugh, bet it was some kid with a rock slingshot,” Bev says, like it’s their town and not someplace they passed through for an hour or two. Mike nods wisely, swapping with Bill. 

“Like Sadie in a Beatles song?” Stan asks the group at large after a few moments of silence. “Four letters?”

“Sexy,” Richie answers immediately. Stanley sighs. “No, I mean it,” he presses. “Sexy Sadie is a song.” He hums a few bars of it. “Write it in pencil, dude.”

The answer does turn out to be “sexy”, which puts Stan in a grumpy mood for a while. Richie is getting drunk on the feeling of being proven right, which puts Eddie in a grumpy mood, so they’re all relieved when Ben yells “A Rocky Mountain?!”

It is indeed. Eddie reads the sign and tells them they each need twenty dollars to get in, which they most certainly cannot afford, so Richie tells them all to hide under the seats and in the trunk. They all laugh at him. 

“Hello, sir,” Richie says, grinning. “Two, please?”

Bill curls further under the seat, thankful that they gave it such a thorough cleaning. Bev catches his eye under the other one and winks. In the front seat, Mike hands cash to the man in the booth, and the Losers are officially smuggled into Rocky Mountains National Park. 

Bill finally gets to unbuckle his seatbelt and breathe in the mountain air. He pulls his flannel off, ties it around his waist, and gets ready to explore. 

Of course, he has to wait twenty minutes. Stan and Eddie are busy cataloging Eddie’s huge, heavy backpack and Bev is trying to fit everything she can into her own bag. Ben is stretching, looking at maps, and Mike is looking around furtively to check that nobody’s charging out of a shrub, yelling “THOSE COLLEGE KIDS ARE ILLEGALLY ENJOYING NATURE!” Richie leans his arm on Bill’s shoulder, looking out at the park, and grins. 

“Fucking gorgeous,” he says, almost reverently. “Ya sure don’t see sights like this in Derry!”

“You sure don’t,” Bill agrees. Behind them, Stan, Eddie, and Bev seem to finally finish packing for their day-trip, and the Losers head off into the wilderness. 

They have no plan. Well, to be fair, they’ve never come up with a plan ever in their lives- they once went to fight a serial killer and child kidnapper with maybe a day and a half of prep- but they just aimlessly wander around the place. Ben is holding the huge map Mike got when they arrived, and he points out Deer Mountain as they pass by it on the trail. Eddie’s wheezing behind them, although Bill is pretty sure he’s being dramatic, and Richie is snickering at Eddie and bouncing all over the place. Ben has his digital camera with him, and he’s sharing it with Bev as the two of them point out cool things they see on the trail. 

“We should hike,” Mike says. “There are all these beautiful mountains.”

Stanley frowns. “We aren’t equipped to hike at all, as fun as that sounds-”

“Let’s do it! Bill, find us a hiking trail,” Richie cheers, bouncing on his toes.

So Bill does, and they settle on going from Bear Lake to the Fern Lake Trailhead. They can take a shuttle to the starting point, which is great, so they find a Park ‘n’ Ride station to wait. 

Eddie’s taking stock of his bag, which is full of first aid supplies and emergency kits for every kind of disaster imaginable. There’s also a few hoodies, and Richie’s laptop, and wireless chargers for their phones. Beverly’s got their food- sandwiches, a bag of Doritos, water bottles, and a whole pie. 

“I think we’re all set, honestly,” Bev says casually. She’s leaning into Ben’s side. “Should I live stream while we wait? It could be a while, and we’re the only people here.”

“Sure!” Richie says, snuggling into her other side. “Go!”

All the boys crowd around her into the frame and she starts to stream. “Hi! Bev Marsh here, I’m at Rocky Mountains National park about to go hiking for the first time with my friends and my boyfriend Ben. We were on the road all morning…”

Bev narrates their day, with interjections from Ben and Richie, until the shuttle pulls up and they pile on as she ends the stream with a jaunty “Bye, everybody! I’ll be posting pics from the day tonight-”

On the shuttle, Richie and Eddie squabble over custody of the backpack and the length of the trail while the Losers exchange knowing looks. The second the shuttle stops and the doors open, they pile off (Eddie wins the backpack in the end) and head off along the trail. 

It’s basically just them in the afternoon sunlight, taking in the beauty of the park around them. Ben’s snapping photos like crazy on his camera and Bev on her cell phone, while Richie slings an arm around Eddie's shoulder and cracks jokes. Bill walks at the front of the group, looking up at the sky, carelessly wandering through the woods, until- shit- wait- 

The loop of his shoelace catches on a piece of wood embedded in the dusty dirt trail. He flails, trips, and hits the ground,  _ hard _ . 

Eddie yelps and the group skitters to a halt as Bill sprawls across the ground. Eddie’s darting forward already, and Bill’s ankle fucking hurts, and Ben rummages through his backpack to find first aid supplies. Eddie takes Bill’s hands, and turns them over- they’re scraped up, with dirt sticking to the cuts. Eddie sucks his teeth, holds out a hand, and accepts the alcohol wipe Ben hands him wordlessly. 

“Lemme… wipe this down… another, Ben, for the other hand?” Eddie chatters nervously. The wipes sting the wounds, but Bill sucks it up because there’s kind of a lot of blood. Then Eddie rubs Neosporin on his palms, tapes them up with the biggest Band-Aids he can find, and moves on to his ankle. “Oh, Bill, you broke your shoelace,” he says sadly, holding up the snapped string. “You’ve gotta re-thread this shoe, the lace will be short.”

“We can get new shoelaces at a gas station someplace, I bet,” Bev says calmly. 

Eddie feels around Bill’s ankle, pinching and prodding and asking if it hurts. Bill replies that it’s just kind of sore, he’ll be fine, and they should keep going, so they do. Stan loops his arm through Bill’s so he can lean on him, which is kind of nice- his ankle does hurt a bit more than he told Eddie. 

Three miles in, Mike informs them they can go down to Lake Helene and eat lunch, so they do. Bill hooks arms with Mike and Stan to make their way down to the lake, followed by Richie clinging to Ben and Eddie holding hands with Bev. 

“Holy fuck,” Richie breathes as it comes into view. “Holy fuck, look at that.”

“Yeah,” Bill says. “Holy fuck indeed.”

The lake is beautiful. Mike finds them a place to sit down and Bev snaps a photo as Stan passes sandwiches around. 

“If any of you guys litter here, I swear to god I’ll drown you in fern Lake when we get there,” he informs them calmly. 

Mike and Richie stretch out on the blanket that Bev and Eddie lay out and point out clouds together, Richie’s head on Mike’s chest. Stanley sits cross-legged and squints at birds in between bites of a sandwich, flipping through pages in his bird book one-handed. Bev orchestrates a mini photoshoot of Ben, calling out ridiculously specific poses and moods while he blushes and she giggles. 

“This is nice,” Bill hums. He’s sitting on the rocks with Eddie, admiring the scenery. “Like, the lake and the park, but the whole trip is nice, y’know?”

Eddie’s been zoning out, but he refocuses on Bill. “Yeah. It’s nice, spending all of our time together. I was worried we’d all get sick of each other.”

“Never. Losers stick together, remember?”

“Losers stick together,” Eddie replies, just as Richie yells “That cloud kind of looks like a dick!”

“Let’s have that pie now,” Mike suggested, sitting up so Richie’s head slipped off his chest. “Come on, where is it?”

Ben cut it into seven slices, and they did their best to eat it off of napkins. 

“Why is pie from random-ass diners in the Midwest the best pie?” Richie asked, mouth full of berries. 

“I dunno, but it is,” Bev sighed. “That was good.”

They continue along the trail, Richie skipping around like a perpetual motion machine and Stan keeping his neck craned at the sky. Mike wraps an arm around Stan’s to guide him around stumps and wayward trees. 

Bill walks ahead through the woods calmly, snapping photos with Bev and Ben. It’s nice- he’s always enjoyed the walk to the Barrens back in Derry, the calm and quiet interrupted only by birds and distant cars. The Barrens can’t hold a candle to a national park, but it’s what his mind keeps coming back to. 

The rest of the Losers are quietly chatting about various subjects- Ben’s latest podcast, and Mike’s thoughts on the podcast, and Richie’s firm opinion that  _ podcasts suck, man, who can sit still that long?  _ Bev laughs, high and flutey, and there’s the sound of a camera shutter. Bill slows down to rejoin the group and leans over to see Stan shaking out a Polaroid. 

They reach the end of the trail and take the shuttle back to the car, just as the sun starts to set. 

“Sleep in the car?” Bev asks, yawning. They nod, and Stan and Eddie move to fold down the seats while Bill and Ben study the map to find a campground. 

Finally, they’re all in some corner of the park, pajama-ed up and watching an episode of Gravity Falls on Richie’s laptop. Eddie’s snuggled up in Bill’s side with his feet in Richie’s lap, and Ben and Bev are falling asleep. 

The very last thing said in the car before they all drift off, is Ben sleepily telling Mike that if a “demon triangle tries to mess with us, you’ll ward him off, right Mikey?”

He doesn’t hear Mike’s response, which is sort of worrying, but before Bill knows it he’s asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ben and mike would be the biggest gravity falls fans though-


	6. DAY FIVE: mesa verde and the grand canyon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the losers drive through a park, mike and ben pull an all-nighter, and they watch the sun rise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not importabt to the storyline but. eddie, bill, and mike are true crime junkies, and ben and mike are really into supernatural stuff, so they all watch buzzfeed unsolved and criminal minds together

When the Losers were in middle school, Mike thought they spent a lot of time together. Every single second they weren’t in school, they were together- hanging around the farm, following Ben and Bill around the library, sneaking Bev and Eddie all over town and practically living in the clubhouse. Then, he went to public high school, and he suddenly was with them for those extra seven or eight hours, and he thought that was a lot: intense study sessions during study halls and loud, rambunctious lunch periods and homework groups at the Tozier’s after school. 

But now, on this trip, he hasn’t spoken to a non-Loser in almost a week. And with anyone else, he’d start to feel kind of suffocated, but…

There was something endearing about Ben returning to the car after jogging through the park in the early morning, about Bev and Stan trying to set up a portable barbecue grill with their curls messy from sleep, about Richie stretching obnoxiously and then turning over to shake Eddie and Bill awake. 

“So, drive through Mesa Verde today?” Mike asks the group at large. Eddie starts plotting the route on Google Maps. 

“It’s about eight hours there,” he announces. “We’d get there at seven pm if we leave soon, then we could drive through the night to see the Grand Canyon while the sun comes up. From there, it’s nine hours-ish to San Diego.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Bev says, eating a bit of extremely crispy bacon. “Let’s eat and get the hell out of Dodge, we have places to be!”

After breakfast and getting dressed, it's a scramble for the best car seats. Mike ends up with Richie in the front seat, singing their hearts out to the Beach Boys with Stan and Bev behind them, while Eddie watches Buzzfeed Unsolved with Bill and Ben listens to The Adventure Zone. 

Beach Boys goes into the Beatles goes into Queen goes into the Grateful Dead. Bev puts her heart and soul into a rendition of Scarlet Begonias as they speed along 285 with the windows cracked open and the air-con blasting. 

They stop two hours into the journey at a gas station. Richie and Eddie fill the minivan up and the rest of the Losers race to the bathrooms, then buy candy and chips and jostle money at the counter. Bev manages to slide into the driver seat before Richie can, and Stan gets shotgun, so Richie and Mike sit in the middle and split a bag of Cheeto Puffs and some Pepsi. 

The Tozier van has a little television screen, and Stan rummages through the center console to find DVDs. It’s mostly comedies- Three Amigos, Best in Show, Spaceballs. Richie grabs at Spaceballs, which Bill wants to see, so he switches seats with Mike on the highway, much to Eddie's chagrin. After a minute or two of surreptitious seat-switching in the back, Ben, Mike and Eddie lean together for a Buzzfeed Unsolved marathon that takes them all the way from Leadville to Pagosa Springs, where they stop for a late lunch pickup at Jimmy Johns. Stan puts the sandwiches, chips, and cookies in his cooler to save, and Bev gives Mike the driver’s seat. 

He takes them all the way to the national park, promising a three-hour ride through. Stan stays in the front with him and hands back food and napkins and Capri-Suns to the Losers, who eat them quietly and with minimal spillage as they roll through the quiet woods. 

Ben eventually trades with Bill to hang halfway out of the window and snap photos, and Stan’s recording the animals as they dart around them. Mike just takes it all in quietly and with the occasional agreement with Bev and Richie that it really is beautiful here. They pass Spruce Tree House with a kind of reverence, and eventually, they stop on a paved trail to sit on the hood of the car and eat chocolate chip cookies while the sun sets over Cliff Palace. The sky is red and gold, washing over all of them and making Bev look like her head is on fire. 

“Your hair is summer Fire, Bev, late June embers,” Richie begins. Ben shoves him- hard enough that he wobbles but not so hard he falls off the car- and Eddie snickers. Bev just presses a kiss to Ben’s temple softly. 

“Don’t bully him, guys,” she says gently. 

They leave the park near ten pm, with Ben in the driver’s seat and Mike beside him. After a brief stop for them to change into PJ’s at a rest stop, they all curl up in the car- Eddie and Richie behind the drivers, with Bev resting her head on Stan’s shoulder next to Bill in the way back. 

Richie pleads for Three Amigos to be put in, so they do, and by the time Steve Martin and Chevy Chase are singing lullabies to Martin Short the three in the back are asleep. Eddie dozes off next as the credits roll and Richie hands up the disc for Best in Show, which he quietly quotes along with Chris Guest and Posey Parker. Of course, by the time the movie’s ridiculous epilogue is playing, Richie is sound asleep.

Ben pulls them into a rest stop, deserted except for a few truckers. Mike runs to the bathroom immediately, then stops to buy them each a lukewarm coffee and a few Five-Hour-Energy drinks.

Outside, Ben’s got the doors open and is gently tucking blankets around the sleeping teenagers in the back. Mike puts the drinks in the cupholders and helps him wedge pillows behind Eddie and Richie’s heads before tipping Bev’s head into a more comfortable position on Stan’s shoulder. 

Ben takes the driver’s seat again, sipping his coffee and sighing. “Thanks, Mike,” he says. 

“Figured it might be a long night. Radio?”   
  


“Hmm. Maybe an audiobook,” Ben decides. Mike scrolls through the app to find something good. Eventually, they decide on The Martian, and drive through the night with the story of Mark Watney softly playing in the background. 

They stop every now and then, switch the driver and refill coffees. Somewhere near Tonalea, Ben returns from the gas station with an early breakfast-late dinner of donuts- glazed for Mike, Boston Cream for Ben. They finish the ride to the Grand Canyon with mouths full of gas-station donuts, the audiobook playing progressively louder, and the windows down on the deserted highway. 

They get there before the sun is up, which is fine, because it takes a lot to wake the Losers up. Bill’s fine after a few gentle shakes, and Stan is slowly blinking awake. Bev’s sleeping heavily on his shoulder, so he lets her stay there for a bit. Eddie and Richie require a good ten minutes of shaking, quiet pleading, more shaking, smacking with pillows, and finally Ben saying loudly that they don’t want this energy drink to go to waste before they sit up and start becoming lucid. 

It’s sixty degrees and there’s no-one else around, so they wrap hoodies and blankets around themselves and wait for the sun to come up. Nobody talks, not wanting to be the one to disturb the silence. Richie yawns, and drapes his arms around Eddie, resting his chin on his head while Stan runs a hand through his curls and clung to Bill. MIke wraps his arms around Bev and Ben, and they stand there for a few minutes until the sun peeked over the horizon. 

It’s worth the all-night drive: orange and red streaking the sky and highlighting the clouds, while the craggy canyon stretches beyond them.

“Wow,” Richie breathes. “It’s beautiful, Mikey, I feel like Eddie here-”   
  


“What?!” Eddie demands, turning his face up to Richie’s. “What’s that supposed to mean, dickwad?”   
  


“I can barely fucking breathe,” Richie laughs, dodging Eddie’s attacks as they run around the area. Stan sighed. 

“The sign says we can’t throw trash in the canyon, but does it say anything about Trashmouth?” he asks offhandedly. 

“Not worth the fine,” Ben grins, wrapping an arm around Bev and another around Stan. Stan beckons for Bill and Mike, who join their little clisterm and they stand there for a brief moment as the sun rises. Eddie and Richie’s shouts subside, and they walk over to them. Richie links arms with Mike and wraps an arm around Eddie’s waist, tucking the shorter boy into his side. 

It’s perfect, and the only thing Mike can think of in the moment is a quote from a book-  _ and in that moment, I swear we were infinite.  _

Ben must be thinking the same thing, because he breaks the silence. “It feels… it feels like we need a grand soundtrack, right? Heroes by Bowie or… something.”   
  


“Gotcha!” Richie whips out his phone with his free hand and taps around Spotify until he settles on a song- a good one, surprisingly, because they were all bracing themselves for All Star or something dumb like that. The song he chooses, though, is Somewhere Only We Know.

They stand there, silently, listening to Keane, all linked together. Bill stretches his other arm, clad in a worn Derry High sweatshirt, to pull Richie and Eddie closer, and Bev extends a hand to Eddie (who still has Richie clinging to his back like a mollusk) to tug him over. 

“Rich,” Mike says, quietly. It feels like a time for their nicknames- Eds and Bevvie and Benji and Rich. 

“Yeah, Mikey?”

“Thanks.”   
  


“...you’re welcome…?”   
  


“Thanks,” Mike clarifies, “for planning this road trip for us, I mean. You were just bored in the clubhouse, and you turned it into, well-”   
  


“One of the best times we’ve ever had,” Bill cuts in, eyes shining with excitement. 

“Yeah, guys, we aren’t even in California yet and… god, we’ll never forget this, huh?”

Richie grins. “We’ll all be in the nursing home together someday, and I’ll say to Eddie- I’ll say, Spaghetti, remember when we all drove cross-country to see the ocean? Remember the Grand Canyon and when Bill got chased by a bear?”   
  


“And I’ll say- I’ll say, don’t call me spaghetti, fuckhead, and I’ll whack you with my cane,” Eddie retorts, cuddling closer into the side of Richie’s shirt. 

“What was that about the bear chasing me?” Bill asks worriedly. 

“We don’t know what’ll happen on the way home,” Richie explains. “So I’m predicting we drive through a forest and you provoke a bear, and we watch it chase you around for a bit.”   
  


Bill considers this. “I don’t hate that idea, honestly.”   
  


They all laugh as the song fades out and the sun casts golden light over everything. 

“Let’s go, guys,” Stan says. “The ocean awaits us.”

Bev hangs back to snap two photos- one for her phone, one Polaroid- and then they get going.

They change into their vacation clothes in the car, because nobody else is around, and once they’re all in the Hawaiian shirts Bev and Richie bought for them, they settle back into the car. Ben drives them to California, Mike sitting shotgun, while the rest of the Losers doze in the backseats. 

It’s a fairly boring drive- Ben and Mike chat about books and shitty film adaptations and San Diego tourist spots. Miles of land pass as the sun rises and the day gets later, and their friends slowly wake up in the backseats. They pitstop for Red Bull and iced coffee at Bev and Eddie’s insistence, they cross the state border and they drive to San Diego unscathed. 


	7. san diego, day 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i disappeared for a whole month and i apologize for that- here's a short-ish chapter :)
> 
> currently working on the next story in this losers au, as well as a few holiday-themed oneshots (i rewatched starenger things and now i'm in a halloween mood), but i promise i haven't forgotten about this!

  
  


Mike’s behind the wheel when they drove through La Jolla. Bev yells “STOP THE CAR!” when they drive through the main part of town, right by the beach, and when he does, she opens the door and runs down to the sand, barefoot, tossing her shirt behind her as she runs. They all sit there, dumbfounded, before Richie sprints after her with his shirt unbuttoned, flying behind him like a cape. They disappear down the sandy hill together, cheering the whole way. 

A split second of silence in the car, then Mike scrambles to find a parking spot and the boys unbutton their shirts. It’s too public to swim quarry-style in underwear, so they leave their shorts on as they follow Richie and Bev to the water. 

It’s easy to see them, isolated from other beachgoers in their own stretch of sand, As they all near them, Richie suddenly Picks Bev up and flings her into the Pacific Ocean. She shrieks as she hits the water- he’s surprisingly strong, it’s a far toss- and comes up giggling. Richie doves in after her, yelping at the sudden cold of the water and then devolving into giggles with her. Bill and Ben follow, the former dunking Richie’s head underwater and the latter swimming to Bev. 

Stan’s next in, folding his shirt neatly in the sand and tentatively dipping in a toe before running full force at the boys (Bev and Ben are floating a few feet away peacefully) with a grin. Mike decides to go after he discards his shirt- Bill, Richie, and Ben are all soaking wet with their clothes clinging to them- and he calmly paddles over to where Richie, Stan, and Bill are organizing chicken fights. 

Eddie stays on the sand Googling something on his phone, sunglasses perched on his nose. Richie peers at hiom, holds up a finger to the rest of them, and creeps onto the beach, sopping wet and grinning wickedly. Eddie sets his phone down for a second to find sunscreen and Richie pounces, carrying Eddie into the deep water and dumping him near Bev and Ben. 

Eddie yelps, shrieks, and generally causes a ruckus for a few minutes. “Richard Tozier! DO you know how sick I ould get- I’ve never swam outside of Derry- oh my fucking god, Richie, I could die-”   
  


“Eds Spagheds,” Richie says calmly. “You’re fine. Look at everyone swimming! We’re alright, man, just chicken fight already.”

If it were anyone else, Eddie’d probably commit a homicide, but he just tackles Richie into the water and then it’s a Losers Club free-for-all, Ben and Bev included. She leaps onto Stan’s back, splashing them both into the waves, followed by Bill avenging Stan and then Ben avenging Bev. Mike picks Richie up- he’s a skinny beanpole on land, and in the water he weighs fifteen pounds soaking wet- and puts him on his shoulders. Richie’s excited for a minute, until Mike purposefully falls over in water up to his own neck. Underwater, he feels Richie’s legs flail and kick until they’re both gasping for air. Then, like they’re twelve year old dumbasses again, they get in a splash fight with each other and Bill. 

Finally they drag themselves back to the car with sand coating their feet and calves, and change into the other shirts Richie and Bev brought. Richie claims the driver's seat, because he booked the house. 

“It’s a secret!” he says, vibrating with his pent-up secret. 

“You showed us the three you narrowed it down to,” Ben points out. “We know it’s one of them.”   
  


Richie scowls, turns up Vampire Weekend, and they drive into the city blasting music and marveling at palm trees. 

Pulling into the house, Eddie gasps and turns to Richie. “Is this…?”   
  


“Yeah.” Richie’s full-on beaming. 

“What? What is it?” Bev asks, leaning forward. “What?”   
  


“This is the one I wanted to stay in!” Eddie says, grinning. “You picked it!”

“Yeah, well, I liked it,” Richie says, blushing. “Let’s get all set up, guys!”

As Bev passes Richie, she distinctly whispers “Someone’s got a crush!”   
  


“Shut up, Marsh,” he says, carrying some bags in. 

It’s a cute little blue house, with a front lawn and porch. Inside Is a spacious living room and kitchen, TV, and dining table and down the hall are their bedrooms- three, a master bed and two smaller ones. 

“We have to buddy up,” Eddie announces after exploring the house. “Bev and Ben in the master bedroom, and Mike and Stan in another one, and I guess Richie and I will share the third bed, Bill can have the pullout?’

There aren’t any objections, so they all set their bags in their rooms and then sit around for a few minutes, before Stan asks about groceries. 

Richie, Bev, and Bill hop up quickly. “We can go!” Bev says excitedly, as they button up new (dry) vacation shirts.

Bev used to hate going grocery shopping by herself (which was every time she had to go), because there was just something about having to count up the total in her head every time she added a new item to the cart and rechecking the number of folded and crumpled bills in her pockets and getting pitying looks from middle-aged mothers and cashiers as the shopped alone that was just so  _ terrible _ that she’d always put it off until the last second. Then, once, Bill had been keeping her company in an empty house when she realized it was time to get groceries, so he’d come with her. It’d been so much more enjoyable to have someone with her: debating breakfast cereals and sitting in the cart while she roamed the produce aisle, sneaking cookie dough onto the conveyor belt so they could bake that evening, and startling her by picking her up by the waist near the dairy products when he returned from grabbing bread. After that, she started to go with him more often, even when it was him that had errands to run. 

Richie just liked to do basic household errands and chores. Bev and Bill had run into him one afternoon in the store, doing a little dance with the shopping cart while performing a song that consisted of him saying his shopping list- beans, rice, stew meat, chicken, bread crumbs, various cheeses- to the tune of Good Time, which was playing over the speakers at that moment. They had joined him, and after that, the Toziers and Marshes synced up the errand-running days. 

So Bev, Richie, and Bill get back in the car and then sit in the driveway for ten minutes trying to find the closest store. Eventually, Bill’s on the road with Bev sitting shotgun and Richie leaning up between their seats, keeping a running commentary up on pedestrians. 

The grocery store is crowded, so Bev grabs a cart and they prepare for battle. Richie hangs on to the back of the cart, feet on the metal bar, while Bill keeps a hand on the side like a parent and checks his phone. 

“Okay, we have the official grocery list here… and in produce we need spinach-”   
  


“Ew. Disgusting. Vetoed,” Richie says.

“I veto the veto, continue, Bill.”

“Spinach, apples, bananas, lemons… and Richie gets to pick the cereal, I guess.”

“Lucky Charms!” he sings, running over to grab a box and dodging a shopping cart.    
  


  
The trip continues well, and they make it back to the house with bags full of groceries, yelling ABBA music out the window. 

Everyone else is relaxing- Eddie is wiping down surfaces like a maniac, of course, and Stan is googling activities they can do during the week, but Mike and Ben are watching the Try Guys on the TV with Chromecast. Bill and Bev flop down next to them, while Richie unloads groceries and Stan helps put them away. Then they join everyone else on the couch, curling up together to watch YouTube and call their parents and (in Bev’s case) edit her first vlog. 

Around 6pm, Eddie stands up and stretches, announcing that he thinks they should start some sort of dinner and that he’s going to figure out the barbeque in the backyard. Bill follows him, and they leave the back door propped open. Bev stays hunched over the laptop Richie lent her, adding the title **roadtrip vlog 1** and the description  _ driving from maine to california with five idiots and my boyfriend! Part 2 in a week xo _

Ben and Mike head out to the back patio, where Eddie and Bill are very close to lighting themselves on fire and there’s a little table set up. Bev and Richie bring out sparkling strawberry drinks they got at the store, and Stan follows with hotdogs, veggie burgers, buns, plates, and barbeque instructions. 

It takes another half-hour of fiddling around before the grill is going and Bev sets out a tray of condiments. Richie looms over Eddie, who’s taken it upon himself to do the cooking, and offers unhelpful tips while Eddie’s face burns red from the heat and the proximity and he hits Richie in the face with cooking utensils. There’s a hammock on a stand behind the table where Mike’s reclining (possibly napping?), sunglasses on and a drink in his hand, and Ben pops in and out of the house where he’s making french fries in the oven. 

Dinner’s a loud, noisy affair. Richie and Bill throw ketchup and mustard bottles across the table, and they argue over what you can and can’t put on hotdogs and is a hotdog a taco? Is it a sandwich? Stan says it’s its own category, and Richie says it’s a taco, and Eddie nearly shoves Richie out of his chair. Bev cackles, Mike snaps a Polaroid. 

“Not it,” Eddie yelps when they finish, slamming a finger to his nose. Richie follows, and so do Stan, Mike, and Ben, but Bev and Bill are distracted by a cool car parked next door, so they’re left to clean up. 

Richie and Eddie race to their room to change into pajamas and fight over who gets what side of the bed- even though they both know Eddie gets the left and Richie gets the right, the way it’s been since they were little kids. Richie pulls on his plaid boxers and oversized t-shirt and tosses Eddie some PJ pants before heading into the bathroom to discover that there’s a second door. 

It leads to Stan and Mike’s room, who are both relaxing on the double bed. Richie flops down face-first between them, Mike’s hand coming down to absentmindedly ruffle his hair while Stan elbows him over. 

Distantly, the door opens, and Bill hollers that they need Stan. He heaves himself up off of the bed and mutters something about the rules of “not-it” and Richie trails after him, because Mike’s book is pretty boring and not at all fun to read over his shoulder. 

Outside, the sun is setting,and Bev and Bill are trying to build a bonfire in the fire pit. Richie stretches out in the hammock and watches Stan crumple up the newspaper, stack the logs, and light matches while the rest of the Losers file outside. Eddie beelines for the hammock, of course- Richie had been hoping he would- and Bev eyes them knowingly, sprawled out on the grass helping Ben set up s’mores making stations. 

Richie eats six s’mores, covers his face and hands in marshmallow, and drinks another sparkling drink. Eddie hands him a damp paper towel, points out the drying fluff on his face, and rolls his eyes. 

After an hour or two of rapid sugar consumption they retire to their rooms while Stan stays outside to put out the fire. Richie curls up on his side, phone out, back to Eddie and listens to the cars pass outside their window. 


End file.
